Inconsequential but HIGHLY irritating things your DH does

[itslikecakesbutitsnotcakes]

I’m not talking ‘fails to do any housework’ or ‘won’t parent his own kids’ but minor irritations that make you want to scream but you can’t because its so petty. For me

Refuses to use the automatic windscreen wiper. Instead he waits until he has no visibility and then manually flips the wiper on once. In heavy rain he’s doing it every couple of seconds. Just put the bloody auto wipers on!!

Unloads the dishwasher but leaves select things stacked up ‘near’ the cupboard or drawer they live in rather than putting them away. Apparently they are left there to ‘thoroughly dry’.

Rage!!!

I've read loads of his posts on MN...

Never procrastinates. Never. It is the most fantastic trait most of the time but if I mention the garage would look nice painted green, while we’re watching TV, he’s painted it green before the episode has ended. Wouldn’t matter if he’s just come off a double shift, is bone tired and it’s 2am. He’s getting it done.

It’s such a desirable trait but also SIT DOWN AND RELAX FFS.

Also explains things to me about the kids as if it’s my first time meeting them. “Charlotte really gets grumpy when she wakes up from a nap”. …..Well yes, I’ve been putting Charlotte down for naps every day for 2 years. I’m quite familiar with her work thank you…..

Love this thread, have laughed to myself a lot reading the posts! Mumsnet at its best!!

Of course there's the behaving like he is dying when he has a cold, further compounded by refusal to take any medication in case it masks the symptoms of something serious. 🙄
It's Lempsip, not heroin so either take it or shut the fuck up. Or at least go and mope somewhere where I can't see you.

Mine does clear the plates. BUT he does it as soon as he's finished, while I'm still eating, then looks at my plate and says "are you still grazing?". GRAZING? I'm not a fucking cow. I'm finishing a meal.

Oh gosh this is cathartic. I’ve also remebered
Rearranges the dishwasher EVERYTHING TIME I’ve loaded it while huffing and puffing ‘this is too full’, ‘that won’t wash properly’. He also does it when he unloads the washing machine that I loaded.

My dog is called Pearl. My dog. She predates him. I named her carefully.

He calls her Pearly, “because she prefers it.” Hearing him shout “PEARLEEEEEEEEEE!” makes me want to batter him. It’s not her name. It’s not even A name. Shut the fuck up.

Insanely routine driven. Eats lunch at 12 noon exactly and gets anxious if he feels he might not be able to. The kitchen in our house has the best Teams background. If I need it for a client call that finishes at 12, he’ll be like, but I will be able to get in and have my lunch? And I’m like, yeah, they’re probably back to back so it won’t run over too much if it runs over at all.” And this unsettles him. “Do you think it will run over?” I dunno. I guess it could. But only by 5 minutes. 10 max. If at all. “But I’ll be able to get in for lunch?”

DUDE YOU ARE A FULL GROWN ADULT YOU CAN WAIT 10 MINS MAX FOR YOUR LUNCH.

Likes to have a shower as soon as he gets up. No one minds working around his routine. Gets mad if he changes his alarm clock time without telling us and there’s someone in the shower, because he likes a shower when he gets up.

Denies he has autistic traits.

Waits until everyone is ready to leave and is in the car before he decides he needs to clean the pool and then go for a sh*t

Mine thinks he's being helpful when he takes over a task I'm in the middle of. He's not. He's being bloody irritating

There’s probably a post-modernist doctorate about liminality and gender in there somewhere.

I bet that poster is American. They call all pasta 'noodles' irrespective of type. In cooking videos they say things like 'take your lasagne noodles...' or 'boil up some spaghetti noodles'. It drives me potty.

And they will often refer to ground beef as 'hamburger'. Not a hamburger, that's a patty. But a quantity of raw ground beef is hamburger. Even if you are going to make a cottage pie or a bolognese sauce with it, it's still hamburger.

And sausagemeat is just sausage. Not a sausage. A singular sausage is a sausage link. A lump of ground pork or sausagemeat is just 'sausage'.

It's all wrong.

Mine thinks that it doesn’t matter when you open something if it has a long BB date that it will last. For example if he opens a packet of ham that (unopened) doesn’t go out of date for two weeks, he doesn’t understand that it has to the be used within 3 days once opened.

every time I explain this with food he acts like I have never told him. He definitely thinks I’m making it up.

It’s completely inconsequential as I don’t live with my partner but his cupboards make no sense, bin bags in the cutlery drawer is bad enough but I made a drink at his the other day and there was a bag of potatoes in the cupboard with the cups and glasses. Baffling.

Mine is incapable of re-wrapping or re-sealing food properly once opened. I find packets of biscuits or crackers just put back in the larder with the wrapping open, left to go stale and soggy.

Leftovers of a meal will be put in a dish or on a plate in the fridge but not covered. Packets of ham opened then bunged back in the fridge with no foil or clingfilm, so the the top slices will shrivel up and go dry.

Also...bath towels. I cannot seem to make him understand that hanging up a wet bath towel over the top of another towel will not make the wet towel dry. It will merely result in two damp and smelly towels. I've tried to explain about air circulation but it's like I'm talking quantum physics to an orang utan.

I have one of those! He has no spatial awareness whatsoever and is also very distracted by whatever he’s doing. He also nudges sideways into me when we’re out walking, so I always make sure he’s the one walking beside the road/river/100ft cliff🤣 He does have ADHD though and this is a fairly common trait.

I’m driving and we come across roadworks etc and there’s an unexpected delay or detour, he will say ‘oh, I wouldn’t have come this way’. 😡
King of the Afterthought I call him.

Washes up, but only the things immediately in front of him on kitchen worktop. So any cups, plates etc still on the table, or in sitting room don't get done unless I go around collecting them and putting them on work top right in front of him..

In the kitchen we've got one of those secret sort of inner drawers that pulls out from within another bigger drawer, which houses all our small utensils. Peelers, garlic press, bottle opener etc. There are loads of little sections and each thing has its place. It's a brilliantly well laid out and organised drawer.

He just cannot seem to get his head around which bits need to go where, in spite of being the one who unloads the dishwasher most days. When I cook I am constantly hunting around in different drawers looking for things that OBVIOUSLY GO IN THE SECRET INNER DRAWER FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. Not in with the tupperware, not in with the tin foil. IN THE BLOODY UTENSIL DRAWER!!!!

When he makes the bed (which he's also very diligent about doing, so I am loath to complain but...) we have a bedspread over the duvet and he puts it on the wrong way round so it ends up longer than it is wide. This leaves an excessive amount of bedspread hanging off the end of the bed which we will trip up on whenever we walk past, but not enough bloody bedspread hanging over each side of the bed. It looks all wrong but he doesn't notice. Then, when we go to bed he'll tug at his side of bedspread and complain I'm nicking more than my share of the covers. I'm not, it's because he's put it back on the wrong way around so it's too short at the sides. Will he listen and remember for next time? Of course he won't.

OMG yes! My DH does this! Drives me bonkers! Is it just a man thing? Never seen a woman do this!

Is he right though? Are you guilty of what is usually a man-crime? Over stuffed washing machines and poorly stacked dishwashers are usually man-crimes that drive women to drink.

Yes performative illness drives me up the wall. I don't get it. Just go and die quietly please DH

😂

Mine has developed a weird habit recently.

I'll ask him a question and he'll reply with something that is related to the subject, but doesn't actually answer the question. So I'll say 'yes but...' and repeat the question. So he'll expand a bit on the first answer he gave, as if I didn't understand and needed further clarification or background info, while still completely failing to answer the original question.

It's like talking to Rachel Reeves or Keir Starmer. I end up shouting 'FFS stop talking and just listen to what I am saying to you, then answer that question, not some other question which I didn't ask!'

Mine does this too. He'll actually go and buy stuff he thinks we need even though we have a pantry full of it. And he opens a new packet or jar of something without checking to see if there is already one on the go. This makes me murderous. No-one needs three open jars of the same type of mustard in their fridge.

I'm amused and comforted by the number of DHs who let the car windscreen have no visibility before flipping on the wiper for one stroke. My late DH did this.

His other one as cramming as many items into the dishwasher as it would take. This was about economy. Naturally the load came back imperfectly washed, with the added bonus of food scraps being baked on so needing a soak before another wash.